Thursday 4 June 2015

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 9

By: Joshua Volkers
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Hello once again, film fans! I’m coming at you with article number 9 and counting, I currently have a cold that makes my nose feel like the inside of a rubber balloon at a 6 year-old’s birthday party, but do not fret! For nothing will stop me from writing you guys another article, so allow us to dive right in.

I was able to see Tomorrowland on the day of its release, so I have the ability to fully and properly review it now. Tomorrowland follows the story of Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a young science enthusiast with an optimism that never fails her, discovering a strange pin that transports her to this fantastical place called, you guessed it, Tomorrowland, and because she is a resourceful young woman she goes out to solve the mystery of this pin. She meets up with a strange young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy), and later a grizzled, pessimistic old inventor named Frank Walker (George Clooney), and they embark on an adventure to save Tomorrowland and, ultimately, the future. There are a lot of question marks that pop up when going into the film, because nobody really knows what it’s about. There are strange pins, stranger assassin robots, and even stranger gadgets shown throughout the whole movie, with sharp, engrossing action and well-written dialogue. The characters we follow are all likable due to the actors playing them, and their motivations are very clear so that we know exactly why they are the way they are. Those are all positives. But it’s a shame that there are quite a few negatives, big ones, that bring the film down from ‘great’ to ‘good’.

First, I have to talk about the third act to this movie: it’s like a dumbbell suddenly being dropped on your foot. The writing becomes somewhat silly, and the message they are trying to deliver, while I very much agree with it, comes across as ham-fisted and forced. Not to mention the fact that this movie goes with the old Hollywood cliche of the evil supreme leader and his master plan to destroy the world as we know it while he sips chocolate flavoured, immortality-granting elixir, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! (I’m serious though, that last part is in the movie. Chocolate-flavoured immortality elixir. Yep, I know.) Also, there are several times throughout the movie where the humour they try to exhibit to the audience is just weird, in such a way that it just doesn’t fit in the movie. Also, the opening took a little bit too long for me to, you know, open up, as I was checking my watch already to see how long they were going to spend time on this intro to the movie.

When you compound all of this together, Tomorrowland is, ultimately, a flawed film that had a great shot at greatness. What I will say is that Brad Bird, the director, is what really makes the movie work. Whenever something works well on screen, I think that most of the credit goes to him; when things don’t work, I think it is because of Damon Lindelof, the co-writer for the film. This is what I said that I suspected last week due to the film’s mixed reviews, and coming out it seems that I was correct.

But enough of that, I’m going to go ahead and stamp this baby with a score: 3.5/5 stars. Even if a lot of what I said seems overtly negative, keep in mind that it’s because I really do believe that this movie could’ve been great, and I’m disappointed that it was only decent. It’s still a fun movie, don’t worry, just be prepared for tonal inconsistencies, an opening that takes a little too long to segue into the main film, and of course, the third act of the movie.

Anyways, time to move on, for we have a lot more opening up in theaters in the next couple of weeks. This Friday, we have quite a few major ones releasing, starting with Entourage (it officially opened yesterday, Wednesday, but whatever), the movie based on the beloved HBO series about a star’s journey through fame and, of course, his entourage of buddies who go up and down Sunset Boulevard with him. Vincent Chase, Johnny Drama, Eric Murphy, Turtle, and Ari Gold, they’re all back in a raunchy R-rated comedy that brings the gang together on the big screen! I know there are a lot of fans of Entourage, but don’t worry, I’ve heard from many fans of the show that the movie is for the fans 100%, and they seem to be reacting to it rather warmly. Critical reception is more mixed, but seeing as I don’t imagine many critics being fans of Entourage, I can’t say I’m surprised. Another movie coming out is the Paul Feig directed action-comedy Spy, with Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Jude Law, and Rose Byrne, about a CIA analyst who has to be sent into the field to complete a mission due to some unfortunate circumstances, but she may end up having the actual skills needed in order to save the day, after all. Listening to that premise, you may scoff at it, but I have heard great things about the movie, highlighting Statham’s comedic timing, the surprisingly well-directed action, and of course, the jokes. Like Entourage though, it’s rated R, so no unsupervised minors allowed. One other movie coming out is Insidious Chapter 3! It is the prequel to the other two Insidious films, and I could tell you the plot, but all you need to know is there are ghosts, a girl tortured by said ghosts, ghost experts and whatnot come into the picture, there’s a lot of creepiness going on, and it’s rated PG-13. What else do I say? If you’re interested in those types of movies, then you already know you’re going to want to buy your ticket when you get the chance.

The following week, however, we have this tiny film coming out, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, called Jurassic World, a reboot/revival/sequel in the series of Jurassic Park movies. It stars Chris ‘The Pratt’ Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and a new mutant-hybrid dinosaur, everyone! The park of Hammond’s vision has finally been opened, and is bringing in more profit than anyone could have dreamed of, but as people are always looking for something new and different, whether it is a dinosaur or not, the company behind the park decides to create a hybrid dinosaur in order to draw in more money. This particular creature gets loose, however, and the whole park is placed in lockdown with many more dinosaurs accidentally set on the loose as well, bringing down terror on the park’s paying customers and and staff. As a big Jurassic Park fan, I am excited to see what director Colin Trevorrow is able to bring to this franchise to give it some new flavour again. I loved the first one, really liked the second one despite its problems, and the third one, well, hehe, let’s not talk about that one.

So yeah, I’m really looking forward to Jurassic World because I think it can really be a great movie, I love Chris Pratt, I think Colin Trevorrow has a lot of talent, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s given to us.

And I am sorry to say that that will conclude this edition of Thursdays at the Theatre. My eyes are literally watering right now due to my cold, guys, so I’m just going to end this and do the throwback to an old movie next time. I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you for the next one! I want to thank you all for reading this, I hope you enjoyed it, and don’t forget to follow The Titan Times on Twitter and like us on Facebook so that you can keep up with all that we have coming out on this very blog. I will see you all next time, so stay strong Titans, and goodbye!

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